Saturday, July 13, 2013

Disliking the likes

Indian
politicians have recently taken to new social media like Facebook and
twitter in a big way as a medium through which they can contact their
followers. The prime minister and other central ministers regularly
tweet to the people and so also state level politicians. There is
nothing wrong in this and on the contrary, should be encouraged as it
cuts red tape and improves contact between ministers and common
people.

But if
a chief minister of a state, who is not much known outside his state,
starts getting a huge number of 'likes' for his Facebook page, from
a far off middle eastern city like 'Istanbul,' would you ever believe
it? No one can, and it surely means some kind of manipulation. But
this is what exactly happened in case of the chief minister of the
northwesterly Indian state of Rajasthan.

On
10th
July, a mainstream Indian newspaper 'Indian Express' reported for the
first time that the chief minister's Facebook page suddenly became
very popular in month of June 2013 as number of 'likes' increased
from 1,69,077 'Likes' on June 1 to 2,14,639 by June 30. Until
June 1, Chief Minister's 'most popular city' ( a feature that shows
where most followers come from) was naturally the state capital city
of Jaipur. But after the quantum jump in 'Likes', it changed from
Jaipur to Istanbul.

The
main opposition party in the state naturally jumped on the bandwagon
and came out with an explanation. According to them, chief minister's
Facebook page, is operated by a dedicated tech team and since some IT
companies on the web are in the business of selling 'Likes' in
bulk...giving a false impression of one's popularity, it is obvious
that the chief minister had bought 'Likes' from IT firms in
Istanbul. Otherwise how chief minister of Rajasthan state can be so
talked about in Istanbul? The opposition party further added that the
ruling party has been trying to project a false image even on social
media.

The
ruling party came out with a funny explanation saying "The
chief minister is a popular figure and he does not need to stoop to
that level. 'Likes' on Facebook can come from anywhere, even the
United States. What is so suspicious about it?" But the Chief
minister himself declared: "I was myself very surprised to
learn about my popularity in Istanbul. I have never been to Turkey,”
making his party's defense fall flat.

After
the news paper report was published, the 'Likes' suddenly nose dived.
On night of 11th
July, the number of 'Likes' on Rajasthan Chief Minister's Facebook
page fell again to under 200,000 from the 2,15,813 seen earlier in
the day. There was also a sudden decrease in number of people
'Talking About This'. Earlier in the day, this number was 78,026 but
on that night only 63,588 people were 'Talking About This.' Even
chief minister's technical team was surprised and said that this
reduction was odd, because in times of controversy, many people could
be expected to check the page just out of curiosity, and the 'Talking
About This' number should not have fallen.

Opposition
party tried to take advantage of the embarrassment of the chief
minister and said that the fall in the numbers reflected attempts at
"corrective measures" by a rattled ruling party and added
"Maybe the Supreme Court judgment pulling up truant politicians
has affected the chief minister's stand," whereas the ruling
party trying to blame the opposition, accused it of "manipulating"
the page "to defame the chief minister.

For
ordinary web surfers like me, this is all unimaginable, confusing and
raises basic issues of reliability of numbers that appear on Facebook
pages for 'likes' and 'Talking About This.' If it is possible that
these numbers can be manipulated, it is better that we do not trust
them at all.